Yesterday, I bought about four pounds of mussels over at Costco and brought them home and put in the icebox. Tonight I started to prepare Drunken Mussels from the foodwishes site. When I pulled the mussels out of the icebox and looked at them everyone of them was open. I tapped 'em and nothing happened. (Now, y'all may not believe this but I ain't no mussel expert.) From my experience with oysters that ain't a good sign. I was gonna throw them all away but my daughter suggested we call my son in law Brad the executive chef. Before I did that I went to the internet and basically found if they smelled ok they were ok or if they didn't close they were ungood. That all sounded semi nebulous to me so I called Brad and this is what he told me.
Put the mussels in salted ice water for one minute or so and if they are alive they will close and are good to go. I did this and had to throw away only two and those had cracked shells. Brad said he always does this with mussels. If it hadn't been for him I'd throwed them out and wasted money.
Now, this may help Don and the ten not to throw away good mussels.
Dee
